Table Of ContentTales from the life of
Bruce Wannell
Adventurery Linguist) Orientalist
Bruce \Vannell was the greatest
Orientalist traveller of his generation:
a Paddy Leigh Fermor of the East, a
Kim for our time. He had lived
through the Iranian Re\'olution,
worked for a decade in the :-:orrh
\Vest Frontier during the wars in
Afghanistan, could transcribe the
most complex Arabic calligraphy by
sight and spoke Iranian and Afghan
Persian with a dazzling, poetic
fluency. His curious combination of
talents - linguist, musician, translator
and teacher - were duplicated by an
international network of friendships
with scholars, poets, spies, aid
workers, archaeologists, diplomats,
artists and writers. Bruce could quote
Hafcz from memory, rustic up a
lethal cocktail, lose himself in
Brahms, open any door, organise a
concert within days of arriving in a
foreign city or walk across a
mountain with just walnuts and dried
mulberries in his pocket. He was a
true original, remembered here with
atlcction, humour and wonder by ·
over eighty of his friends and
collaborators.
£15.00
TALES FROM THE LIFE
OF BRUCE WANNELL
ADVENTURER, LINGUIST, ORIENTALIST
Edited by
Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring
SICKLE MOON BOOKS
First published in 2020 by Sickle Moon Books, an imprint of
Eland Publishing Ltd, 61 Exmouth Market, London ECIR 4QL
Copyright© contributors, as acknowledged
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
ISBN: 978 190020925 0
All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Front cover images: Bruce in Afghanistan with his baz;
Bruce in the organ loft of the Eglise Saint-Michel, Cordes-sur-ciel
(photo Andy Miller)
Back cover images: Taxing Man (photo John Batten);
Bruce at Moghul tomb, Pakistan 1993 (photo Kate Quartano Brown);
Bruce with a tour in Yemen 2008 (photo Richard Winter)
Inside cover images: The Road from Rohtas (photo Kate Quartano Brown);
Bruce standing proud at the Abd'allah Ansari Shrine, Herat, Afghanistan
(photo Andy Miller)
Text set in Great Britain by James Morris
Printed by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 9
CHRONOLOGY 21
A STUDENT OF LANGUAGE AND LIFE 29
A litter of goumumds Julian Wannell 31
Brown-haired and strikingly aesthetic John Martin Robinson 33
Picnics on the rooftop Matthew Harragin 35
Isis, but thousands of miles from Egypt Neil Stratton 38
An embarkation to Watteau-land James Ramsay 40
Over a low flame Artemis Cooper 43
Tax inspector John Batten 44
Random memories Carla Gabrieli 46
AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, 1985-98 49
Reading the Quran in Arabic in the early morning
Abdal Samad /David Summers 51
A gift normally only bestowed on royalty Jonathan L. Lee 53
Kandahar, Afghanistan, April 1992 John Butt 56
Musical memories Gordon Adam 60
Neighbour in Pakistan Brigitte Neubacher 62
Inshallah Lyse Doucet 64
A life between adventure, Sufism and music Ulrike Vestring 66
Bound for Baluchistan Frances Dodd 68
A pianist and a cellist meet in Pakistan Jean Gianfranceschi 69
The most interesting year of my life Elisabeth Rubi 72
Speaking better than perfect French Anthony Fitmerbert 76
From Arcadia to the Hindu Kush Kate Quartano Brown 81
Two letters to Fynn Vergos Bruce Wannell 85
A MODERN BATIUTA 95
Taliban marching powder Kevin Rushby 97
Bruce: back into the blue Tim Mackintosh-Smith 102
Cairo transformed Julian Reilly and Bojana Mojsov 104
Bruce and Mahmoud Eric Stobbaerts and Adnan Ali 106
Simon Everard Digby (1932-2010) Bruce Wannell 109
Shaykh Abdu Rahim al-Bura'i, the Sufi Bruce Wannell 116
The book that never was by the most interesting man
in the world Nova Robinson 126
Recollections: returning to Afghanistan Bruce Wannell 130
FREE-SCHOLAR, TRANSLATOR AND TEACHER 135
Bruce in Kabul Thomas Wide 137
Timurid epitaphs, harpsichord and saffron Andy Miller 142
A Sufi returns Fitzroy Morrissey 145
... and then from his cape . . . Moin Mir 147
Whenever our paths crossed Tahir Shah 150
Bruce at Galle Razeen Sally 152
Someone I needed in my life Richard McClary 155
Editing Bruce Bijan Omrani 157
Meet at Rustem Pasha Janet and Paul Starkey 160
Lothians to Lahore Isabel Buchanan 164
Speak to that gentleman over there Gianni Dubbini Venier 166
Persian grammar Charlie Gammell 171
Sour maids and other career advice Ben Cuddon 172
'over the Kachikani glacier into Swat ... ' Nick Buchan 174
Breakfast with Bruce Lydia Wilson 176
A garden close to the tomb of Sa'di Robert Maxwell 178
Persian cooking Bruce Wannell 182
Sufi poetry for Amnesty Graham Henderson 187
Rumi Alan Williams 189
Designing books with Bruce Celia Ward 192
A formidable but modest scholar Warwick Ball 194
AMATEUR MUSICIAN AND PROFESSIONAL GUEST 199
It began with Schubert's trout quintet at Isfahan
Norman MacSween 201
Accompanying Bruce: piano wars Andrew Campbell-1iech 204
Journeys through life Christopher Sykes 208
Bruce would call me 'umm-as-salon' Dalu Jones 211
Elusive, implausible Joe Roberts 213
Bruce comes to the 'rescue' Lucinda Bredin 215
Somewhere between Spitfire pilot and steampunk Peter Barker 217
The call Julie Bland 220
Italy with Bruce Helena Gerrish 222
Bruce in Muscat Nicholas Armour 224
Bruce has come and gone Ian Blois 226
We'll take the Bruce route... Fiona Frame and Kai Price 233
With Bruce for Hogarth at the Soane John Nicoll 237
Hampi heroes George Michell and John Fritz 240
An Italian memory Anthony Eyre 242
A carpet bag of reference books Richard Lamborn 244
Kamaa James Wannell 246
Journey back to the violin Katherine Schofield 251
Leaming from a master at work Sina Fakhroddin Ghaffari 257
DRAGOMAN BRUCE 263
Bruce the host Gwendolyn Leick 265
His Hemish was camp, singing, poetic . . . Sylvie Franquet 268
Butter Rose Baring 269
Bruce as dragoman Antony l,fynn 271
Reminding locals of good, forgotten traditions Reza Mir 273
Before the gate of the legation Richard Lambert 276
A stranger closer than a friend Dori Dana-Haeri 278
With Bruce to the Hadramaut Sally Sampson 279
The signature of the calligrapher Canan Alioglu 281
Bruce on tour Amelia Stewart 283
Dragoman extraordinaire Warwick Ball 286
Persian picnics Barnaby Rogerson 292
From godfather to friend William and Alec Harragin 299
If he was kidnapped... Heather Wannell 301
LITERARY PARTNERSHIP 303
William Dalrymple 305
THREEFAREWELI.S 331
Pots, pottering and cintamani Isabel Denyer 333
Moscow, 1971 George Lemos 336
Bruce's house Nick Robinson 342
AFTERWORD 345
Bruce's last performance Lisa Chaney 347
INTRODUCTION
B
ruce Wannell was the greatest orientalist traveller of his
generation: a Paddy Leigh Fermor of the East, a Kim for our
own time. He lived in Iran through the revolution and worked for a
decade in the North West Frontier during the Russian occupation of
Afghanistan. Speaking Iranian and Afghan Persian with a dazzling,
poetic fluency, he could also talk in Arabic, Pushtu, Urdu, Swahili, be
amiable in Amharic, Spanish and Greek and could lecture fluently in
French, Italian, English or German. Bruce could also sightread and
transcribe the most complex Arabic calligraphy.
He had lived, not just travelled, through many of the lands of Islam
and could reference their cultural artefacts against the artistic treasures
of Europe. His curious combination of talents - linguist, musician,
translator and teacher - were reflected in an international network
of friendships with scholars, poets, aid-workers, archaeologists,
diplomats, artists and writers. He was also a sponger of the first water,
whose various achievements as a tyrannical house guest exceeded the
collective literary tradition of Dickens's Skimpole, Evelyn Waugh's
John Beaver or Olivia Manning's Prince Yakimov.
In the last fifteen years of his life, he combined all these skills and
became the resident amanuensis of William Dalrymple, staying for
months at a time in his house outside Delhi. Working together against a
backdrop of tame goats, a brilliant cook, parrots, visiting fans, passing
musicians (not to mention the presence of three Dalrymple children
and their artist mother Olivia Fraser), they created four books about
the Mughal Empire. It was a unique achievement, which combined
fresh archival scholarship with a rollicking page-turning narrative, that
both entertained and instructed a vast international readership, whilst
subtly inoculating them with historical revisionism and scholastic
multi-culturalism. In volume after volume - White Mughals, The
Last Mughal, Return of the King, The Anarchy - William Dalrymple
saluted the vital contribution of his scholar-house guest, who he
acknowledged to be 'the best translator of eighteenth-century Persian'
and 'probably my best friend in the world'. Bruce could be maddening.
I remember William rather regretting paying him an advance ( on which
he immediately disappeared off to Ethiopia for months until lack of
funds brought his return). Similarly, Bruce could be annoyed by the
rock-star status of William in India, 'surrounded by sycophants until
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